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Remember the Forgotten Fallen

Every year the FBI publishes statistics for those officers who died in the line of duty the previous year. It includes data on officers killed both feloniously, and not.

It is a great tool and it validates and underscores the need for sound officer safety practices.

But it only gets part of the story.

And the same is true about the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. Every year names of officers killed in the line of duty are engraved into this beautiful Washington, D.C. memorial.

But you and I both know that many officers' names are missing. We've worked alongside them and we've seen them fall.

One has to wonder how many officers have been victimized on multiple fronts. Not just by the acts of assailants in-house and out, but by their subsequent injuries not being recognized as duty-related by the usual bean counters and paper-shufflers. How many of them have then ultimately succumbed to such injuries without their deaths being recognized as duty related?

And what of those whose deaths may or may not have been duty-related?

I can't help but think of two Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies who worked at Temple Station. They both died of brain cancer in the prime of their lives. Coincidence? Perhaps. Certainly the L.A. County Sheriff's Department concluded as much despite the fact that the two men had worked a hazardous material spill in South El Monte a few years before.

How many cops have unwittingly been exposed to all manner of contaminants while ensuring the safety of others, diverting motorists and pedestrians alike from fire and accident scenes, all the while having ingested the kinds of substances for which those little warning placards are developed? And has every cop whose respiratory system was compromised while checking out a chemical warehouse or meth labs been covered?

What about the cops who perhaps didn't crash and die on their way home from work after working 24 hours straight only to run an errand the next day and get killed in a car crash because of fatigue?

And what about those who have seen too much pain and suffering and taken it too much to heart.

For every cop killed feloniously, there are three killed by their own hands. I think of Oklahoma City sergeant Terry Leakey who saved several lives in the aftermath of Timothy McVeigh's terrorist act but was unable to save his own. I think of a deputy I worked with who was one hell of a street cop and possibly the best dispatcher in LASD's history who, like so many other cops, killed himself shortly after his retirement. I think of the deputy who helped exposed a cover-up, only to blow his brains out in the station parking lot after years of ostracism and ridicule from his peers thereafter.

There are other threats — some that are not just endemic to our profession; some just now becoming known. Skin cancer has long been recognized as a dayshifter's bane. Recent studies have found higher rates of breast and prostate cancer among women and men who work night shift.

Yes, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial is a laudable entity and is a most honorable way to acknowledge those whose deaths have been recognized as being in the line of duty.

But let's not forget our other brethren who work may have been less conspicuously gallant, but who have likewise paid the ultimate price years before their time.

Author

Former associate editor of Police Magazine and a retired patrol supervisor and investigator with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, Sgt. Dean Scoville has received multiple awards for government service.

Former associate editor of Police Magazine and a retired patrol supervisor and investigator with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, Sgt. Dean Scoville has received multiple awards for government service.

Foot patrol is the essence of community policing—officers on foot create opportunities for the public to connect with their police (and vice versa). Conversely, when officers are wrapped in two tons of metal and plastic, that opportunity for real connection is essentially lost.

Too many officers are driving themselves into their graves—turning their cars into their coffins—in single-vehicle crashes. According to ODMP, there were 34 such preventable duty deaths in a three-year span from 2016 to the present. It's impossible to know how many officers were seriously injured but survived single-vehicle crashes during that time period. Something must be done.

While empirical data doesn't exist—at least to my knowledge—on lost productivity due to injuries sustained during foot pursuits, anecdotal evidence suggests that medical leave following such activities is significant enough to give some thought to the matter.

There is certainly benefit to being current on events involving the people you consider family—your brothers and sisters across the country with whom you share a special bond—as well as the world at large. However, it's also important—and extremely beneficial—to spend some time completely disconnected from the job. This is a lesson I recently re-learned.

I've talked with officers who have lost a colleague to suicide—as well as many widows of officers who died by suicide—and just about everyone has said that the warning signs were there before tragedy struck. They just didn't put the pieces together until it was too late. Let's all do a better job of helping officers in crisis.

It's somewhat disappointing that it takes an act of evil for the pure good in people to come bubbling visibly to the surface, but when the deep-down-good does show itself, we are reminded that it's been there all along—it's just been hiding beneath the waterline.

Unbeknownst to many in the public—but well-known to pretty much all of the men and women who stand behind the thin blue line that protects them—police officers have a tremendous sense of humor. It's time to take a little break from heavy subjects and have a little fun.

I've long held the belief that a year-long civics class should be a requirement nationwide. Further, these classes should include more than just the basic structure of government. Curriculum should incorporate Constitutional Law and Supreme Court cases related to the Fourth and Eighth amendments, as well as police policies, procedures, and practices.

Very few people who get into teaching have the mental, emotional, or physical fortitude to use deadly force when under imminent threat. However, every teacher should receive some level of active shooter response training—everyone should have at least some idea of what to do in an attack.

A police K-9 is not just a member of the department—they are also a family member of the handler. Handlers and their K-9 partners basically spend their lives together—off duty and on—for many years. Most handlers keep their dogs after the animal is retired from active duty. The bond between a handler and "man's best friend" is truly unique. When a police dog dies in the line of duty, the emotional impact is just as difficult—albeit decidedly different—as when a human partner is killed.

The estimated number of violent crimes in the United States decreased 0.2% in 2017 compared to 2016, according to FBI data released on Monday. Property crimes reportedly dropped 3.0%. So why does it feel to most cops on the street that the exact opposite is true?

Now that law enforcement — particularly the FBI — has placed such an emphasis on investigating and thwarting attacks, a complex and costly plan like the one used on 9/11 would come to the attention of some three-letter agency, and the attackers arrested or killed (depending upon where we found them). Consequently, the tactics of the major terrorist organizations have changed.

Drug addicts need treatment, not assistance in furthering their addiction. The government and the private sector should be helping addicts shake their addiction — not giving them a "safe place" to continue destroying themselves.

When the Fort Worth (TX) Police Department proactively invited their local media to a press conference to show the dash- and body-worn camera footage of a recent incident in which two officers rescued a suicidal woman who was standing precariously atop the safety barrier on a very high highway bridge — and allow their officers to answer questions and talk about their experiences on that day — I was very pleased indeed.